Does the past matter? Unravelling the temporal interdependencies of institutions in the success of public–private partnerships

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of institutional forces – legal origin, current institutions, and institutional stability – and their relationship with the success of 6,805 public – private partnerships (PPPs) deployed in 57 developing economies in the period 1997–2017. The results indicate that better current institutions and higher stability influence the success of PPPs. Furthermore, when legal origin, current institutions, and stability are positively aligned, their interaction has a significant impact on PPPs’ performance. The findings are consistent with complementary and substitution institutional effects, which could help policymakers and practitioners to identify success factors for these agreements.

KEYWORDS:

• Public–private partnerships
• legal origin
• institutions
• stability
• interdependencies

Acknowledgement

The authors would also like to acknowledge the comments of the editors, as well as the 3 reviewers of the previous versions. Finally, the authors also want to thank the work of World Bank’s Public Private Partnership Group, because without the work they do to create the database used in this paper, it would not have been possible to carry out this article. Of course, any possible error in this article is the sole responsibility of the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2022.2125558.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Authors acknowledge Departamento de Ciencia, Universidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento del Gobierno de Aragón CIBER [S38_20R] and CREVALOR [S42_20R], and for the research project LMP175_21; Centro Universitario de la Defensa de Zaragoza and University of Zaragoza for the research project UZCUD2020-SOC-05; Centro Universitario de la Defensa for the research project CUD-2021_09; Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad for the research project PID2019-109128RB-C21; Ministerio de Ciencia y Universidades (Spanish Government), Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI), and ERDF funds A way of making Europe for the project grants RTI2018-093483-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER) and 10.13039/501100011033 [PID2020-113338RB-I00] (MCIN/AEI).

Notes on contributors

Jorge Fleta-Asín

Jorge Fleta-Asín is a PhD Assistant Lecturer at the University of Zaragoza (UZ), where he teaches courses related to business and management, as well as classes in postgraduate programs. He has published his research in journals such as Sustainable Development, Public Management Review, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences or Journal of International Management, among others.

Fernando Muñoz-Sánchez

Fernando Muñoz-Sánchez is an Associate Professor at the University of Zaragoza (UZ), where he has taught courses in financial economics and accounting. He has published his research in different academic journals, such as Business Ethics: A European Review, Journal of Business Ethics, International Review of Economics and Finance, Quantitative Finance, International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of Empirical Finance, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Sustainable Development or Public Management Review, among others.

José María Gimeno-Feliú

José María Gimeno-Feliú is Professor at the University of Zaragoza (UZ), where he teaches courses related to public procurement. He is author of 20 monographs and more than 150 publications in collective books and in specialized magazines on public procurement. He has been Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Zaragoza from May 2003 to May 2010, as well as Member of the Advisory Council of the Ministry of Public Works of the Government of Spain (since July 2015). He is currently Director of the Observatory of Public Procurement in Spain (www.obcp.es) which has been in operation since October 2011 and is based at the Zaragoza Law School.